


Absorbing Everything

by dreiser



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 13:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9183505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreiser/pseuds/dreiser
Summary: Acceptance has never been something Lena experienced easily.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Post 2x08. Just a short one shot. I just had to write something for this ship, I enjoy it so much.

Acceptance has never been something Lena experienced easily. It was something that she always had to fight for. Usually it was given reluctantly, if at all, and by the time she received it, Lena had long since decided she didn't want it anymore. At least from the people giving it. 

She was used to being judged, sight unseen. Part and parcel of being a Luthor, after all. In the beginning it was in how she was held to a higher standard, it was the expectations that went along with their family name. The silent watching eyes, wondering if she was as smart as her brother, if she was worthy of being adopted into the echelons of higher society, a sort of quiet pity and suspicion about the little girl lost they had taken in. If she could ever live up to the rest of the Luthors greatness. This went along with the false sort of acceptance she often experienced. The kind where they were all too gracious and charming, where they made Lena think they cared, when really it was never about her, it was about her family and what she could for them. It wasn't anything real and it was never about Lena herself. Then came Lex's insanity and suddenly people didn't want anything from her anymore other than to stay away. This is when the judgement in their eyes became something altogether menacing. Where people looked at her and saw a threat, not another human being, and always seemed to be silently asking if she was like him. 

If she was filled with madness and hatred for anything different. Anything that could be deemed inhuman. Often Lena thought her family could count itself among those numbers. Not that Lex or Lillian would ever agree with her. That was hardly anything new though. She had always been the black sheep as it were. 

Lena had met hundreds of people in her lifetime and she never felt accepted by any of them. That was a simple fact of her life. Her family and their legacy kept that from ever happening. Then one day Kara Danvers walked into her life and changed everything that Lena knew to be true. 

Suddenly there was this person who took her at her word, who trusted her, who accepted her, and it left Lena at a loss. 

In the beginning she decided to test it, she was beguiling and she flirted, she pushed at Kara, trying to see all the little ways she would respond. Her reactions were always the same though. The same warmth, the same kindness, the same awkward stammer and blush. One Lena noticed was exactly matched in National City's favorite hero. 

She didn't know what they were really. More than once she called them friends but were they? Lena couldn't believe Kara at face value. Believe that she trusted Lena, accepted her, in a way no one in her life ever had. That lay the way of fantasy and Lena had never been overly fond of the genre. 

Besides, if they were friends wouldn't Kara tell her the truth? 

The logical part of her mind told her even if they were, it was too soon, they had only known each other a matter of months. Would she share a secret so big after such a short period of time? No, she wouldn't, Lena knew that for certain. Still, it was all the excuse she needed to create a distance.

And then Kara landed on her balcony and accused her mother of running Cadmus. 

Suddenly Kara keeping her secret made so much more sense and the acceptance she thought she had disappeared in an instant. Still, Lena did the right thing. She put the last of her family behind bars and she waited for Kara's response. It came days later when Kara landed on her balcony and opened her office door.

"That still isn't an entrance," Lena drawled, not looking up from her computer. 

"Lena," Kara said slowly, shifting from foot to foot, "I wanted to thank you." 

"You're welcome," said Lena, turning in her chair and regarding the hero. Kara was looking at her with such sincerity, appearing worried, and Lena tilted her head. "Stop making that face," Lena said sardonically and Kara blinked at her. "My mother and I were never close. In fact, I would say that at the very most we only barely tolerated each other. It wasn't something devastating to expose her for who she truly was. I might even say it was exhilarating." 

"It doesn't hurt?" asked Kara quietly, concern lacing her voice. 

Honestly. What does Kara want from her? Lena doesn't know if she has the patience to play these games right now. This farce that Kara wants to know her, wants to help, that she really sees her, accepts her for Lena and not for her accursed last name. "What do you want, Kara?" asked Lena, saying each word with slow deliberation as she rose to her feet. "Do you want me to tell you about when I was a child and how I longed for Lillian to love me? That once I would've done anything to have her attention? Maybe even have helped Lex with his evil schemes if only approached at the most vulnerable point in my life?" Kara's eyes widened as Lena continued on, "I'm a big girl. Mommy's approval doesn't matter anymore and I don't sell out my friends, much less the lives of thousands of innocents, all for some impossible child's dream of being loved."

"Lena," Kara said her name in such a pleading way and she didn't know what to make of it. What it all meant. Then Kara was closing the distance between them, reaching out to hold her face in an unbearably gentle grasp, the pads of her thumbs caressing her cheeks. Her forehead resting against Lena's as their breaths seemed to intermingle. Of all the responses she could've gotten from calling Kara out, Lena expected this one the least. "It's not impossible, don't say that."

Scoffing at this, Lena opened her mouth to respond with something clever. A quip that would bely her belief that yes, it was very much impossible, burying her pain beneath humor as she's done for decades. Except the words were stolen when Kara kissed her. 

She had been kissed countless times before, by some of the most beautiful men and women in the world, many would say, but none of them felt like this. None of them were this painfully soft and overwhelmingly loving. Kara kissed her like she was something precious, something to be protected and revered, and when they parted Lena was chasing after Kara's lips, not wanting it to end. Kara smiled fondly at this and kissed her again, affection glowing in her blue eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she murmured, "I've kept who I am a secret for so long it's become ingrained." Lena nodded, understanding why that might be, and honestly she had expected for Kara to deny it. Not for the other woman to kiss her. Besides, it made sense, given who her family was. She started to say as much when Kara kissed her again, hungry and urgent, and Lena lost herself in the sensation, clinging to Kara. "Don't say it," Kara breathed against her lips, "you aren't your family and they have nothing to do with why I didn't tell you about me. I'm just..." Kara trailed off, biting her lip and an anxiety emerging in her gaze, one that had Lena reaching out, trying to reassure with her touch just like Kara had done for her. 

"Tell me," Lena instructed, pushing a lock of hair out of Kara's eyes. 

"I'm so used to hiding that it's become hard to stop," said Kara quietly. "I've been doing it ever since I got here. I lost one world and when I arrived on the second, Kal El told me it was necessary to survive. So that's what the lies have become, a part of my survival." She frowned severely, looking off in the distance as she muttered, "I've never liked it."

"Then don't," said Lena and Kara turned to her and she saw the protests emerging and silenced them with a kiss. "Not from me." She drew Kara in closer, winding her fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck. "Let me see everything you have to hide. I promise I'll keep it safe." 

Kara was the one clinging to her now, nodding her head and Lena felt the tears on her skin. They remained in that embrace for who knows how long, with Kara's face buried in the crook of Lena's neck and Lena memorizing the feel Kara's body next to her own. Then Kara darted backwards and Lena jolted in surprise as Jess opened the door and spoke about her upcoming conference call with Tokyo. Jess paused when she noticed Kara and Kara reddened, walking backwards towards the balcony and gestured with her thumb, as she said, "I'll just... yeah." 

With that, Kara was gone and Lena was frozen, a little in shock about the reality of what had just happened. Part of her wondered if it was a dream. Especially as she continued about her day, preparing for the aforementioned conference call.

Then her phone buzzed with a text message. 

_Kara: I'm sorry I left! Dinner?_

Smiling at the proof it had happened, that she hadn't just imagined it all, Lena replied in the affirmative, agreeing to meet Kara at her apartment later. It was there, in the warmth of Kara's home and in the strength of her embrace that Lena found the acceptance she had always been looking for. And, at last, it was all too real.

End


End file.
